TGM Designs

TGM Designs has compiled this glossary of internet marketing and advertising terminology to help our clients to know and understand what services we provide. The terms cited are used regularly throughout online advertising and marketing. If you are preparing to start marketing or advertising your website these terms will prove to be very helpful. This glossary's intention is to be relevant and beneficial to your understanding rather than be comprehensive.

Rate card

The list of advertising prices and products and packages offered by a media company.

Re-direct

When used in reference to online advertising, one server assigning an ad-serving or ad-targeting function to another server, often operated by a third company. For instance, a web publisher's ad management server might re-direct to a third-party hired by an advertiser to distribute its ads to target customers; and then another re-direct to a "rich media" provider might also occur if streaming video were involved before the ad is finally delivered to the consumer. In some cases, the process of re-directs can produce latency.

Reach

	Unique users that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category; also called unduplicated audience.
	The total number of unique users who will be served a given ad.

Referral link

the referring page, or referral link is a place from which the user clicked to get to the current page. In other words, since a hyperlink connects one URL to another, in clicking on a link the browser moves from the referring URL to the destination URL. Also known as source of a visit.

Referral fees

Fees paid by advertisers for delivering a qualified sales lead or purchase inquiry.

Registration

A process for site visitors to enter information about themselves. Sites use registration data to enable or enhance targeting of content and ads. Registration can be required or voluntary.

Remnant Space

Advertising space that remains unsold right before it is about to be used and thus often sold at a discount at the last minute.

Repeat Banner

A banner that is featured at least twice on the same page. A repeat banner is usually found at both the top and bottom of the same page.

Repeat visitor

Unique visitor who has accessed a Web site more than once over a specific time period.

Return visits

The average number of times a user returns to a site over a specific time period.

Rich media

Advertisements with which users can interact (as opposed to solely animation) in a web page format. These advertisements can be used either singularly or in combination with various technologies, including but not limited to sound, video, or Flash, and with programming languages such as Java, Javascript, and DHTML. These Guidelines cover standard Web applications including e-mail, static (e.g. html) and dynamic (e.g. asp) Web pages, and may appear in ad formats such as banners and buttons as well as transitionals and various over-the-page units such as floating ads, page take-overs, and tear-backs.

ROC (Run of Catalog)

Web banners run within a specific catalog or catalogs: web, pictures, sounds, top 5%.

ROI (Return on Investment)

Net profit divided by investment.

RON (Run-of-Network)

The scheduling of Internet advertising whereby an ad network positions ads across the sites it represents at its own discretion, according to available inventor. The advertiser usually forgoes premium positioning in exchange for more advertising weight at a lower CPM.

ROS (Run-of-Site)

The scheduling of internet advertising whereby ads run across an entire site, often at a lower cost to the advertiser than the purchase of specific site sub-sections.

Sell-through rate

The percentage of ad inventory sold as opposed to traded or bartered.

Server centric measurement

Audience measurement derived from server logs.

Shockwave

A browser plug-in developed by Macromedia (now part of Adobe) which allows multimedia objects to appear on the web (animation, audio and video).

Site-centric measurement

Audience measurement derived from a website's own server logs.

Site Reach

The number of visitors a banner reaches on a website compared to either the overall visitors to the same website.

Skyscraper

A tall, thin online ad unit. The IAB guidelines recommend two sizes of skyscrapers: 120 X 600 and 160 x 600.

Slotting fee

A fee charged to advertisers by media companies to get premium positioning on their site, category exclusivity or some other special treatment. It is similar to slotting allowances charged by retailers.

Space

Location on a page of a site in which an ad can be placed. Each space on a site is uniquely identified. There can be multiple spaces on a single page.

Specs / Specifications

Web banner specifications for display on a web site. Specs may include file size, creative type, content restrictions, and coding restrictions.

Splash page

A preliminary page that precedes the user-requested page of a Web site that usually promotes a particular site feature or provides advertising. A splash page is timed to move on to the requested page after a short period of time or a click. Also known as an interstitial. Splash pages are not considered qualified page impressions under current industry guidelines, but they are considered qualified ad impressions.

Sponsor

	A sponsor is an advertiser who has sponsored an ad and, by doing so, has also helped sponsor or sustain the Web site itself
	An advertiser that has a special relationship with the Web site and supports a specific feature of a Web site, such as a writer's column or a collection of articles on a particular subject.

Sponsorship

Sponsorship represents custom content and/or experiences created for an advertiser which may or may not include ad unties (i.e., display advertising, brand logos, advertorial and pre-roll video). Sponsorships fall into several categories:

	Spotlights are custom built pages incorporating an advertiser’s brand and housing a collection of content usually around a theme
	Advergaming can range from an advertiser buying all the ad units around a game or a “sponsored by” link to creating a custom branded game experience
	Content & Section Sponsorship is when an advertiser exclusively sponsors a particular section of the site or email (usually existing content) reskinned with the advertiser’s branding
	Sweepstakes & Contests can range from branded sweepstakes on the site to a full-fledge branded contest with submissions and judging

Square Button

A button of equal width and height dimensions. A popular square button ad is 125 x 125 pixels aquare. Also known as a square banner.

Static ad placement / Static rotation

	Ads that remain on a web page for a specified period of time
	Embedded ads

Stickiness

A measure used to gauge the effectiveness of a site in retaining individual users. Stickiness is usually measured by the duration of the visit.

Subliminal

The use of an advertising message presented below the threshold of consciousness. A visual or auditory message that is allegedly perceived psychologically, but not consciously. Also called subception.

Superstitials®

An interstitial format developed by Unicast which is fully pre-cached before playing. Specs are 550 x 480 pixels (2/3 of screen), up to 100K file size and up to 20 seconds in length.

Target audience

The intended audience for an ad, usually defined in terms of specific demographics (age, sex, income, etc.) product purchase behavior, product usage or media usage.

Terms & Conditions

The details of the contract accompanying an insertion order. See iab.net for voluntary guidelines for standard terms & conditions for Internet advertising for media buys.

Textual ad impressions

The delivery of a text-based advertisement to a browser. To compensate for slow internet connections, visitors may disable "auto load images" in their graphical browser. When they reach a page that contains an advertisement, they see a marker and the advertiser's message in text format in place of the graphical ad. Additionally, if a user has a text-only browser, only textual ads are delivered and recorded as textual ad impressions.

Third-party ad server

Independent outsourced companies that specialize in managing, maintaining, serving, tracking, and analyzing the results of online ad campaigns. They deliver targeted advertising that can be tailored to consumers' declared or predicted characteristics or preferences.

302 Redirect

the process of a server sending a browser the location of a requested ad, rather than sending the ad itself. Ad servers use 302 redirects to allow them to track activities such as ad requests or ad clicks.

Tile

A very small banner ad, sometimes without click-through features.

Tracking

Means of measuring visitors who are exposed to a banner ad and their post-click results.

Transitional ad

an ad that is displayed between Web pages. In other words, the user sees an advertisement as he/she navigates between page ‘a’ and page ‘b.’ Also known as an interstitial.

Transitional pop up

an ad that pops up in a separate ad window between content pages.

Trick Ad

A banner that advertises something that actually isn't, or has appears to have features it actually doesn't. For example, a banner that advertises "FREE MONEY — Click Here!" but takes people to a porn site is a trick banner. Another example is a banner that appears to have clickable text links, but the text links don't actually work

Web beacon

a line of code which is used by a website or third party ad server to track a user’s activity, such as a registration or conversion. A Web beacon is often invisible because it is only 1 x 1 pixel in size with no color. Also known as Web bug, 1 by 1 GIF, invisible GIF and tracker GIF.

Yield

the percentage of clicks vs. impressions on an ad within a specific page. Also called ad click rate.

Source: http://www.iab.net